Collaborative Design

  • General info (Source: Osiris)
  • Quartile: 3
    Time Slot: A
    Course Type: Specialization Elective
    Code: 7ZM8M0
    Responsible Lecturer: prof.dr.ir. B. de Vries
    ECTS: 5
    Exams: No
    Required courses:

    None

    Course description:
    The objective of this course is to gain insight in the problem domain of Collaborative Design with special attention to Systems Engineering (SE) and Building Information Models (BIM).

    A consortium of companies will work on a design assignment for one quartile. A student is member on one of the following companies: Architects, Urban designers, and Engineers. A company consists of 4 persons with one person as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), one Systems Engineering Officer (SEO) and the other two as domain experts. The consortium management consist of all CEOs and SEOs from all companies. The project starts with writing a project management plan. Following the design is created between the companies while monitoring and evaluating the progress. In this process the application of SE and BIM techniques and tools is compulsory. Consortium management is tutored by the teachers in weekly sessions. A group dynamics training is included in the course. Finally the design is presented, a report is written about the design process, and an individual scientific paper as a contribution to the Collaborative Design research and development.



  • Other courses recommended by students
  • Useful preliminary courses:
    • Fundamentals of BIM
    • Design Science Methodology and Systems Engineering
    Useful follow-up courses:
    • Fundamentals of BIM
    • Innovation Space Project


  • Survey outcomes (0: low, 5: high)
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  • Additional information
  • Applied skills / methods:
    • Teamplay, planning, etc.
    • Revit and Matrixframe
    • Working with BIM and IFC files
    • Communication in a larger group
    Project course: Yes
    Chosen topics:

    Group part

    • We designed the area according to our vision of sustainability and social cohesion we promoted active modes of transport, designed with a lot of green and green energy, made the area feel like one big park.
    • We had to design a building
    • As an engineer I was responsible for the HVAC systems in our consortiums design. This had to be calculated and designed in Revit.
    • I had to design and model the structure of the building
    • For my planning tool suggested the use of an interacitve planning tool named Microsoft Project. Here students can update and review their planning on a weekly basis.

    Individual part

    • For the individual paper we had to do research on how to improve a part of BIM.
    • During the group work I noticed that efficient collaboration in BIM-driven teams was not necessarly determined by the technical BIM-skills of the group members. Therefore, I suggested (and literature confirmed this) that soft-skills where a more important aspect in BIM-team dynamics than technical skill.
    Recommended topics:
    • Create a good IFC format for SketchUp to better integrate SketchUp with other programs such as Revit
    • Depending on your background, I wouldn’t advise engineering if you don’t know anything about it
    • Depends on your specialties. I had no experience as an engineer (or B side of the faculty) so that was relatively difficult. Choose the consortium in which you think you have most experience, so that you can focus on the use of BIM rather than learning a new program like Revit.
    • Focus on a topic where there is overlap between Systems Engineering, BIM and something of your personal interest. This is probably and interesting and novel insight.


  • Metadata
  • Data source: Own survey
    Applied method: Questionnaire
    Response rate: 30%
    Sample size: 9
    Academic year: 2021


    • Disclaimer: The following data has been collected by SERVICE among students that followed Collaborative Design in 2020/2021. Based on this feedback or other causes, it is possible that the course will have a different set up in the future. Keep this in mind when you use these data for selecting your courses.